Fate of Texas abortion clinics hang in balance ahead of court ruling

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/12/-sp-texas-abortion-clinic-court-ruling-appeal

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The fate of more than half of Texas’s remaining abortion clinics hinged on a hearing on Friday that played out between the state and abortion providers in one of the nation’s most conservative courts.

Texas asked a three-judge panel in the 5th US circuit court of appeals to overturn a ruling by a US district judge last month that temporarily blocked an onerous provision of the state’s abortion law from going into effect.

During oral arguments in a New Orleans courtroom, the Texas solicitor general, Jonathan Mitchell, attempted to persuade the court that it is imperative to reverse judge Lee Yeakel’s ruling and allow Texas to enforce a provision requiring abortion clinics to meet the same building standards as ambulatory surgical centres.

The attorney for abortion clinics, Stephanie Toti, argued that the requirement would severely restrict access to abortions for many Texas women.

The state also asked the judges to overturn a part of Yeakel’s judgment that exempts two Texas clinics in regions where women’s access to abortion services is the most restricted from a stricture requiring hospital-admitting privileges for doctors who perform the procedure.

The burden is on the state to convince the judges that it should be allowed to enforce the law while Yeakel’s judgment is appealed.

Yeakel, a George W Bush appointee, found that the upgraded facility requirement imposed an “undue burden” on women seeking abortions in Texas. His decision, handed down late on a Friday, was met with cautious optimism by abortion clinic providers who had prepared to shut their doors.

Opponents say the stringent operational standards are costly, unnecessarily burdensome and, as a result, make it difficult for women to access abortions. Officials defending the law say its building and equipment regulations are meant to protect patients and improve health and safety standards.

The state’s omnibus abortion law, a version of which was famously filibustered by state senator Wendy Davis, shortens the timeframe for legal abortions to 20 weeks, requires hospital-admitting privileges for abortion providers, places new restrictions on medicated abortions, and compels clinics to meet the same building requirements as ambulatory surgical centres. The strictures have been rolled out in stages.

Nearly half of the state’s abortion clinics have closed since Governor Rick Perry signed the law into effect in July 2013. Allowing the hospital-style building requirement to take effect could leave the second largest state in the US with only a handful of abortion clinics, and none in south or west Texas.

The conservative 5th circuit has already weighed in on Texas’s abortion law, upholding the hospital-admitting privileges requirement.

A judge on Friday’s panel, Jennifer Walker Elrod, was among the three judges that sided with Texas over the provision. This decision reversed a previous ruling by Yeakel that found the provision placed an undue burden on women seeking abortions without making the process safer.

Abortion continues to be a hotly debated issue in the US in the decades since the supreme court affirmed a right to the procedure, and several states have tried to chip away at access under a variety of laws and proposed legislation.

The Texas law is part of a relative recent legislative trend to limit access to abortions by regulating facilities, providers and doctors, rather than the women seeking the procedure. The added red tape forces clinics that cannot afford to make the upgrades to close. Moreover, hospitals often require doctors to admit a minimum number of patients before they are granted admitting privileges.